About a week ago, a young chap was going round and round the rotating door outside the Economics/Social Sciences building, which is one of Oxford’s shiny modern monstrosities (albeit a fair bit nicer than the Law Faculty building, which really should be demolished forthwith). He had a sign fixed to his front that read: ‘Freshers!: Tutorials in procrastination freely available!’. Apart from being amusing, it reminded me that I’ve enjoyed quite a bit of procrastination pleasure at PodBlack Cat and Oxonomics.
Podblack Cat is a broadly skeptical blog, with a special focus on superstitions and conspiracy theories. It’s not at all like Snopes, though, and worth checking out for its differences in tone and focus. Oxonomics is run by a friend of mine and fellow Institute for Humane Studies scholar. I have depended on it a great deal of late in order to get my head around the current financial crisis, particularly the utility of comparisons with the Great Depression (not very). The blog recently ran an excellent roundtable on the current situation which – being Oxford – was well attended. Something like 300 people showed up, and a podcast is now available.
Enjoy your procrastinations 
2 Comments
GAH!! You read me too? Crap, I better go write something decent on superstitions now… got anything you want me to tackle? I just got a brand new book on 9/11 truthers and AIDS/HIV conspiracies that I’m pulling to bits for my dissertation!
Oh, and I read two books by Jenny ‘don’t vaccinate your kids it causes autism rubbish claims’ McCarthy and I think they gave me tinea of the brain. I could let you suffer in sympathy…
Become a writer. Excellent oportunities for procrastination. Good housemates too. Will sweep, wash dishes, clean toilets.
Anything but sitting down and writing.